A Bullet for Buñuel

A Bullet for Buñuel encompasses a video and sound work, a multiple, an edition of unique prints on military grade photosensitized aluminium, and both a performative lecture and writing that charts a narrative through a body of research, data, correspondence, and photographs. This material is synthesized in a paperback book A Bullet for Buñuel: Fragments of a Failed Bullet, published by Primary Information, New York.

The project is based on my protracted attempt to realise an undertaking that the late filmmaker, Luis Buñuel, was deemed too powerful to achieve. In a story told by once-surrealist Georges Sadoul, Luis Buñuel tried to create a bullet possessing such a weak charge that it would be able to slide ‘harmlessly’ off the filmmaker’s clothes when fired at him but, as with his filmmaking, Buñuel had highly charged results.

Consulting with the Buñuel Estate and sources ranging from online forums for bullet makers to a ballistics lab associated with the United States Secret Service, I sought to make the reduced power bullet that Buñuel had been too explosive to create.

My notion was that I would use this bullet as a means to animate a shirt that had been worn by the filmmaker himself. While trying to bring this two-year endeavor to completion I was able to achieve failure upon failure.